


Small Mercies

by inksheddings



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:38:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inksheddings/pseuds/inksheddings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony shows up on Christmas Eve. Gibbs debates how far he should let him inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Mercies

It had been a long while since Gibbs had made for himself what most people would term a real Christmas. After Shannon and Kelly had died, there hadn't been much of a reason. He still wasn't what anyone would consider a festive man but holidays had slowly begun to take on renewed meaning with people like Ducky harassing him into it year after year. Gibbs was stubborn, sure, but smart enough to realize that it wasn't so bad to have people who cared about him in his life.

Still, Gibbs had no tree, no colored lights on the house, no Christmas shows on the television. His Christmas Eve dinner had consisted of a French dip sandwich and fries, and he was ready to read a bit before turning in early when he heard a knock on the door. Opening it, he found Tony on his front step, snow dusting his coat and the top of his head.

"What the hell are you knocking for?" Gibbs asked.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Boss," Tony replied, smiling and holding up a six-pack of beer.

Gibbs rolled his eyes as he opened the door wide.

"Aren't you supposed to be spending the holiday with your father?" Gibbs asked as he took the beer so Tony could hang up his coat.

"I am," Tony said, following Gibbs into the kitchen. "But my flight doesn't leave until morning."

"If it leaves, then," Gibbs said. Flying out on Christmas was bad enough, but the snow and ice forecast was brutal, and the local station had been regularly broadcasting news of delays and cancellations.

"Yeah."

Gibbs took a good look at Tony as he opened two bottles of beer. The uncertainty Gibbs had heard in his voice wasn't necessarily out of place--Tony and his father were rebuilding a relationship, and that was never an easy thing to do. But still, Gibbs truly hadn't expected to see Tony until the end of the month, when his vacation was up.

He handed Tony a bottle and a clean dish towel. Tony took them both, but quirked an eyebrow at him in confusion.

"They're both for your head--one literally, the other figuratively."

"Huh?"

"Oh, for--" Gibbs grabbed the towel out of Tony's hand and carefully rubbed the snow out of his hair. "Don't need you melting all over my kitchen floor, DiNozzo."

Tony laughed but lowered his head, making it easier for Gibbs to take care of every stray snowflake. When he was done, Tony shook his head like a dog after a bath, as if testing Gibbs' thoroughness with the towel. Gibbs spun Tony around, whipped the wet towel at Tony's ass, and shoved him toward the living room. "There. Have a seat and drink your beer. I'll be out in a minute."

"You don't have to be so pushy! That kinda hurt!"

"Uh-huh."

Gibbs opened his own bottle of beer, leaned against the counter, and took an unsteady breath. His team had wrapped up a case only two days ago, and until then they hadn't been sure they'd even be able to take time off. Luckily, their prime suspect gave an unexpectedly quick confession. Gibbs spoke with Vance and--by agreeing to hold down the fort and finish up extraneous and overdue paperwork--secured the time for each of his team members. This had disappointed his father until Gibbs promised to try and make it out to Stillwater for New Year's instead.

But on a night when Tony should have been packing for his trip to New York, he was at Gibbs' door, in his house, on his couch--a beer in his hand and something quite obviously on his mind. Tony often sought out his company whenever he felt unsettled about something. Gibbs never turned him away, despite the warning tug in his gut that maybe--at least sometimes--he should. Still, Tony didn't always tell him a damn thing; he seemed to just need to hang out for a while to ground himself, but whether he talked or not, it got to Gibbs in a way that he tried hard not to examine too closely.

Gibbs made his way into the living room and found Tony sitting on the floor in front of the lit fireplace. His jacket and tie lay haphazardly on the couch, but he'd left his shoes on. Gibbs figured he should be grateful for small mercies.

"Cold, DiNozzo?"

"That dish towel, Boss. Wet. Cold. Brrrrr. Gonna be feeling that for days."

"Sure you are." Gibbs sat down on the couch. He couldn't see Tony's face, but despite the way he appeared to be taking full advantage of Gibbs' hospitality, the set of his shoulders was tense. Gibbs took a long pull on his beer, waiting.

"I'm not looking for my father's approval," Tony said, his back still toward Gibbs. "Or at least I don't think I am. I mean, I never thought I had it as a kid or an adult, and ... well, hell. I was so busy trying to get it from you that ... like I said. Hell."

Questions swirled through Gibbs' mind, but experience had taught him to let Tony talk, let him give away as much as he was willing and help Gibbs narrow down the questions to the ones that truly mattered.

"But trying to figure out just what I do want from my dad has me wondering ..."

Tony didn't move, didn't say anything for a long moment. The only sound Gibbs could hear was the crackling of the fire.

"What are you wondering, Tony?"

Tony looked over his shoulder, straight at Gibbs. "What it is that I want from you." Tony turned back toward the fire and brought his bottle to his mouth, drinking probably half of what was left in one gulp.

Gibbs wanted to close his eyes against the picture Tony made--sitting on Gibbs' floor, in front of Gibbs' fire, looking like he should never sit anywhere else. "Aw, hell, Tony."

"Heh, yeah. It kinda has been. I think I actually mentioned that."

And there was that uncertainty again in Tony's voice, and while Gibbs didn't have any more answers than Tony did--none he was ready to admit to anyway--he did want to try to show him that this wasn't something he had to figure out alone.

Gibbs took himself and his beer and sat down on the floor next to Tony. Tony held his own bottle with both hands, tightly, like it was the only thing keeping him from bolting out the door.

"Take your shoes off, Tony."

"Thought I'd keep 'em on, Boss, in case you chased me out of here. It's too cold out there to run around barefoot."

"I didn't say you could take your socks off, just your shoes."

Tony chuckled and smiled but didn't make a move to take his shoes off. He did relax enough to release the death grip on his bottle and take a sip. His eyes stayed glued to the fire.

"Besides," Gibbs said as knocked the bottom of his bottle against Tony's heel, "I'm not chasing you anywhere."

"You're, uh, not?" Tony started peeling at one corner of the bottle's label. "Um, could you clarify that for me? Do you mean you're not chasing me out the door because I've gone from pathetic, substitute-father-seeking-DiNozzo to creepy, inappropriately-enamored-with-his-boss-DiNozzo? Or do you mean you're not chasing me like ... _chasing_ me--not that you'd have to chase me, Boss, I showed up on my own. Did I mention the enamored thing? Or did you mean both? Or--"

"Just take off your damn shoes already, Tony."

Tony seemed about to say something else but stopped short and cocked his head, narrowing his eyes to meet Gibbs' gaze without a hint of his earlier uncertainty. This was a look Gibbs was very familiar with: Tony having caught a scent he wasn't about to lose. "Oh. _Ohh!_ " Tony's mouth widened into a grin that filled up not just his face but the entire room. "And if I don't take them off? You gonna do it for me?"

Gibbs thought about glaring the smile right off of Tony's face or smacking the back of his head, but since Tony had decided to throw a wrench in Gibbs' evening and possibly in his life, he figured he owed Tony something unexpected. So Gibbs smiled just as widely.

"Oh. Oh, shit. Now you're really scaring me! Okay, shoes off. On it."

Tony scrambled to kick his shoes off--one nearly ended up in the fire--and by the time he was settled again, Gibbs couldn't help but notice that Tony was sitting that much closer, their hips and elbows now slightly touching. They sat like that, quietly, until both bottles were empty. Gibbs did close his eyes then, because he knew what he was about to say and he also knew exactly what he'd mean by it.

"Need a ride to the airport, DiNozzo?"

Tony sighed and Gibbs could feel the residual tension drain out of Tony's body. He could also feel him lean in even closer.

"Does that mean I can take my socks off?"

Gibbs still had no intention of putting up colored lights or turning on "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," but maybe next year he might decide a tree was okay. And whether this thing between him and Tony led anywhere other than a warm fireplace, cold beers, and strange conversations about footwear, Gibbs figured that this year, it was a decent enough way to spend the holidays.

 

 **end**

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tibbs_yuletide over at LiveJournal.


End file.
